WASHINGTON, D.C. — If you haven’t been keeping track, let me catch you up.
- Congress debating whether Phase 4 relief bill is necessary
- Some Ohio lawmakers say a lot more help is needed
- Others say reopening is the only Phase 4 that makes sense
To date, Congress has passed four bills that President Trump has signed into law that dedicated about $3 trillion to fight the coronavirus pandemic through testing, small business relief, direct cash payments, and more.
Phase 1 was $8 billion.
Phase 2 was $100 billion.
Phase 3 was $2.2 trillion.
Phase 3.5, as it’s been called, was $500 billion.
But now there’s a debate over what a Phase 4 bill should look like — or if it should even exist.
“I think we should be passing a Phase 4 today or tomorrow, and send it to [Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell, with local government money in there, with an additional trillion dollars for these small businesses,” Representative Tim Ryan (D, 13th Congressional District) said in an interview on April 23.
That same day, Rep. Jim Jordan (R, 4th Congressional District) offered the opposite take on things.
“The best Phase 4 is an open economy,” Jordan said. “The best way to help small business owners, the best way to help people who have been harmed by this, is to get our economy up and running.”
On Monday, the U.S. Senate returned to Washington for the first time since March, allowing some in-person debate about the issue.
But Ohio’s two senators weighed in in recent weeks from home.
Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) has suggested that two more bills may be needed.
“I would consider Phase 4 filling the gaps — tweaking what’s not working, tweaking what’s working,” Portman said in a call with reporters on April 14. “And then the next one would be stimulus.”
While Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) has called for things like hazard pay for essential workers and said a return to any type of normal is still far away.
“If we open the economy in an unsafe way, too fast, without protecting workers, and without enough testing, we’ll probably have to close the economy again when people get sick in large numbers again,” Brown said in a video conference interview on April 21. “And that’s just stupid policy.”
It’s likely some type of Phase 4 will happen, but it’s not yet clear how expansive it will be.
Some lawmakers want more money sent to local governments and small businesses, while others want an infrastructure plan worked in.
It’s also not yet clear when the U.S. House will return to D.C. — but it’s expected that any Phase 4 legislation would require an in-person vote.